


To Those Who Regret Nothing

by Eben_Sterling



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Dark, Gen, Levi/Erwin Smith-centric, Non-Canonical Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 09:55:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11415459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eben_Sterling/pseuds/Eben_Sterling
Summary: A Scout Regiment mission goes horribly wrong.





	To Those Who Regret Nothing

**Author's Note:**

> Not cannon. At all. Just a short little something I wrote for the hecks. Enjoy your darkness my friends.

    He slid back into consciousness just enough to crack open his eyes. He was looking up at a building, the clay and stone wall cracked. The crumbling, smashed roof was stripped bare of most of its shingles, and those that remained were unnaturally red, and scattered… He was laying on his back, sharp angles of concrete and mortar pressing into his shoulders. He tried moving, just slightly, and found that it was beyond him. He couldn’t command his limbs to move… if he still possessed them. The angle at which his head was tilted back, he could register only blinding sky and a towering, broken building. If only he could see. He vainly attempted to lift his head, slowly, and was met with such a blinding shot of pain that he gasped sharply, the new influx of air filling his chest and producing sickening grating sounds. He let his head fall back onto the stone rubble, feeling a very thick, warm liquid fill his mouth and run down the side of his cheek. Moving had awoken his pain sensors; every part of his body flared with fire, but the majority seemed to be focused in his chest… and his right leg. Why was breathing so difficult? So very…difficult. He didn’t attempt to remember how it happened, and he didn’t try to think about what was going to happen. He was looking at the edge of the roof again. Some poor soldier’s blood coated the crumbled clay shingles. Everything was so unnaturally still, save the slight breeze that moved his hair over his eyes, on occasion. Everything was so perfectly quiet. He let his eyes slide shut again.  
    “LEVI! OH GOD, CORPORAL!”  
    The voice was young and grating, and full of panic. He wished they would shut up. Everything had been so quiet. Some distance away, panicked feet shuffled closer, then rapid footfalls away, until there was nothing but silence again.  
    Voices drifted to him from the darkness. Loud, shouting voices, but so very far away. Pounding footsteps, too. He felt he should recognize those voices. The footfalls drew near, and the voices became impossibly loud.  
    “LEVI DAMNIT DON’T YOU FUCKING DIE ON ME”  
    He struggled to open his eyes, and was met with the painful bright of sunlight, pouring over the edge of the roof. He could sense people moving around him, their shadows intermittently blocking out the sun. He barely registered their voices, phrases occasionally reaching his numbed mind.  
    “Don’t you die… Hanji! HANJI! PULL YOUSELF TOGETHER, YOU CAN PANIC LATER!”  
    “Y-YES Sir! We… need to stop the bleeding…th-there’s a metal bar through his leg. We can’t move him unless we take him off…”  
    “Chest looks bad…ribs broken…his lung”  
    “…this. Use this”  
    He felt pressure on his chest, just enough to drive what little air there was in his lungs out. He gasped vainly, eeking in as much air as possible through a mouthful of blood. The warm liquid ran down his face in new rivulets.  
    “Sir! …have…move him, now!”  
    “Ok, …same time”  
    He barely registered arms moving underneath him, separating him from his warm bed of rocks. Another set wrapped tightly around his right thigh. He didn’t respond to the pain signals that shot up to meet him.  
    “One… Two… NOW!”  
    He felt himself rise up. The white-hot pain moved past agony and into blinding light. If he screamed, he didn’t remember; if it had even been in his ability to do so.  
The next time he regained consciousness, he was flying. Flying very fast, it seemed. Air rushed past him, moving his hair away from his eyes and drying the blood into cracks on his neck and face. Was he… on his 3DMG? No, the flying was much too jarring. Running. He was running. But he was laying down… his brain struggled to make sense of anything. The jarring motion steadily became more defined, and each movement sent sickening fire through his body. The arms that had lifted him from his place among the rubble… were still there. One under his back and another under his legs. There was something else too, he was just becoming aware of. A strange, powerful rumble was vibrating his chest. It was coming through his shoulder, it seemed, which was pressed against something solid and warm. This rolling wave came in forceful accents, and seemed to hold anger. Whoever was carrying him was yelling, their voice too loud to register in his ears, but he felt their roar vibrate through him.  
Move… they were telling somebody to move out of the way.  
    He drifted his eyes open to see an upside-down world slide past. His head was tilted back, as before. Just slightly, he allowed his head to drift to the left, each boot fall jarring his vision. His eyes unconsciously focused on the Wings of Freedom emblem sown into a shoulder sleeve, the white feathers dyed crimson. Under that was embroidered the name “SMITH”.  
    His gaze drifted away, back to the moving world. Dozens of faces were sliding past him now, all lined up and retreating. Their features blended together, each tan jacket forming another. Sense was returning to his ears, and he could now hear the ragged gasps of air between Erwin’s shouts. He… could hear his name. People were saying his name. The world was incredibly heavy, every movement breathtaking and blurring his mind, any control utterly beyond him. He could do nothing but watch the shocked, blended faces of those around him. If he had been capable of a coherent thought, he might have hated himself. Weakness in his world always meant death. Perhaps… he wasn’t so far away from that, after all. Slowly, Levi closed his eyes again, back to the still, silent darkness.


End file.
